Cherry Pie

Credit: Saffitz, Claire. Dessert Person. Clarkson Potter, New York.

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Hello friends! It has been quite awhile. I have been dealing with many life changes: a new place to live, a new wonderful roommate, my job ending (and the whole job search ordeal), beginning to study for the GRE, applying to graduate school, and, overall, a blank slate. In the midst of all of these things happening, I do need to remind myself to calm down a little bit, and making food is one of the ways I love to cope. It had been a while since I have baked something substantial, so I decided to go with this cherry pie from Claire Saffitz (who, by the way, is a sweets whiz, please check out her video content if you get the chance). Her recipe calls for an almond flour pie crust, but I used her normal pie crust instead because I used sweet cherries instead of sour cherries (that was what the supermarket had). I did not have any almond extract, and I forgot to do the egg wash and sugar on top, more on that later. Everything else remained the same. Let's get bakin'!

Crust

This pie crust recipe is very simple yet unique. To start, I put in the flour, sugar and salt, then whisked it with a tiny whisk. Next, I cut half of my butter, and put it straight into the fridge. I sliced the rest of my butter to go directly into the flour mixture, and I smushed the butter into the flour with the tops of my fingers. It was important that the butter stayed cool and did not melt - no palms! Once the first half of the butter was incorporated, I took the second half out of the fridge and did the same thing. I am not really sure what the science behind this technique is. I did notice that once the crust was completely ready, it had some streaks of butter throughout; maybe that is the reason to add the butter this way. You will see pictures soon.

Once all of the butter was incorporated, I slowly added ice water to the mix until it started to look like pie dough. I kneaded it just a few times, then let it rest in the fridge for two hours. Now, here comes the interesting part: after resting it, I rolled it out into a rectangle, then folded it into an envelope shape, then put it back in the fridge for a few days. Now, did I have to do this? No. I have made this crust without using this step before, and it turned out beautifully. But hey, I wanted to give it a try! Saffitz claims that this step gives the crust a flakier texture. I can confirm that this is true, you will see at the end of this blogpost. Heavenly. For now, pictured below is the crust envelope. Notice also the butter streaks!

Cherry Filling

Frustratingly, my crust went into my fridge, then my freezer, then back to my fridge because I had ordered a cherry pitter and it took way too long to arrive. But once it came, I went to town. I had to pit three pounds of cherries, so I popped on some music and got to work. Pictured below is the aftermath...

If there was no context for this image, I would understand if your first reaction was concern.

Once my cherries were pitted, I could make my filling! This was pretty straightforward: I combined sugar, lemon zest, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, and vanilla. No almond extract unfortunately because I did not check my pantry carefully enough, but I figured it would not make too much of a difference, especially since my pie crust was not almond-flavored either. The end result was absolutely beautiful, and I knew in the oven it would get juicy and delicious.

Rolling out the crust, and Filling up the Pie!

The crust has commenced... in other words the crust has become cold enough to roll out! I split my crust recipe in half, rolled out the first half to go inside my pie tin, and the other half to go on top as a lattice pattern. I rolled each half out to about 1/8 inch thick, which, if you need a visualization, is about as thick as my grandmother's cloth placemats. (Use your imagination). I did not get the shape perfect and my rolled out crust initially did not fit entirely in the pin, which was totally okay! Pro tip for when this happens: put it all in the tin, cut off the excess, then use the excess to fill in the gaps of where there is exposed pie tin. Works every time. Pictured below you can see the bottom crust, and where exactly I used my arts and crafts skills.

Look at that seam!!

For my second half of pie dough, I used kitchen scissors to cut strips that were about 1/2 inch wide. The recipe calls for 1 inch, but I think I was a bit paranoid that I would run out of crust. Here are the strips, pictured below.

Somebody touched my Spaghetti!!

It soon became time to fill my pie, and to further test my artistic skills. After pouring my cherry filling into the bottom half of my crust, I did a lattice pattern with my strips. I first laid down two of my strips in a t-shape. Then, I put two more strips going horizontally, one each placed above and below the middle. I lifted up the middle horizontal strip, put a vertical facing strip underneath, then folded the horizontal strip back over; I did this on the right and left sides of the pie. To put down horizontal strips, I lifted the middle vertical strip up, put down the horizontal strip, then folded the vertical strip back over. If you had an aneurysm reading that, I am sorry. I repeated this process until I used up all of my strips, pinched the edges together, and below is what the final results look like before going in the oven!

I plopped the pie in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, then and hour and a half at 350 degrees. Before I knew it, our house had a big summery treat!

Final Thoughts

First off, let me brag a little bit: one of my roommates is pretty severely allergic to cherries, and when she ate this pie, no reaction! I must be magic.

Now, for the real thoughts: I am never going back to half-assing my crust ever again. Folding it in the envelope style made the texture almost like a croissant. It was so flaky, yet crispy and sturdy enough to hold the filling. It was so so so good. I do think I made my strips too thin, because sometimes I do not know how to measure with my instincts, but thats okay. I also completely forgot to do the egg wash and sugar on top, but I thought the pie still looked pretty great. Maybe it would have been slightly prettier if I did not forget, but it's what's on the inside that counts <3 . For this specific cherry pie, Saffitz instructs readers to use a pie crust with almond flour replacing some of the flour. I did the regular crust, and it was still divine. No harm either way!

The filling was beautifully sweet with the juicy cherries, and the small hint of lemon and spices brought it over the top! Absolutely perfect flavors for the summer. I wonder also if using sweeter cherries made it okay for me to use a normal crust, since Saffitz's original recipe calls for sour cherries- I bet the almond crust has a sweeter taste. Moral of the story, being basic or being extra: either will result in a heavenly treat.

Final post-oven results pictured below! Advice for myself and for you: when times are hard, give yourself some grace and eat a damned-good slice of pie. Until next time!